I'm about 1/4 of the way done with one I started this afternoon..first suggestion is get a drill press.

This is pretty dependent on the type of hand drill you are using. With a lower power cordless drill it could take a quite a while. If it's a high end cordless and you have extra batteries, it's quicker. Any decent corded drill will beat out much more expensive cordless drills.

With a corded drill it takes about 10 min. We used a $49 corded Dewalt drill and a Makita cordless drill during our testing.

With that said, a drill press is faster than a hand drill if you have access to one.

This is pretty dependent on the type of hand drill you are using. With a lower power cordless drill it could take a quite a while. If it's a high end cordless and you have extra batteries, it's quicker. Any decent corded drill will beat out much more expensive cordless drills.

With a corded drill it takes about 10 min. We used a $49 corded Dewalt drill and a Makita cordless drill during our testing.

With that said, a drill press is faster than a hand drill if you have access to one.

I wanted to use the first go around as a test. I don't know how you got a a single hole cut out in 10 minutes. On my drill press no problem, but with a hand drill? No way could I hog out that hole in 10 min. I first tried the hand drill (and I tried 3 different hand drills that I own) with a TiN bit - keeps the heat down really good for the deep repetitive cuts - but required too much downward pressure to bite. I switched over to HSS and was able to get more bite with less pressure - but you could definitely see the difference in the heat (required more cutting oil).

I finally switched over to my drill press because the hand drill was just too much effort - the press made the material removal MUCH more easy - and with the press I was easily doing the plunge cuts at less than 10 min per cut. The guide plate is not needed for the press once you've marked the initial locations. I tired using it just for an experiment and basically you end up with too much chip build up under the block due to the gap, although the travel on my press isn't quite long enough to clear the guide plate for the jig - so clearing the chips completely with the guide on was difficult.

As I mentioned - I was forced to leave to go to some silly family Christmas party

I wanted to pick it back up tonight and drill out the upper shelf but it looks like its going to have to wait as Santa needs to build some kids toys tonight.

I wont be able to get to the router until after the 1st - I was only able to order the tool today and McMaster only lists shipping date as "After the holidays".

Hopefully someone else gets one done before I get back from Sequoia - no internet where I'm going so I'm not going to be able to check for follow ups.

Anyone else started one yet?

Once I'm tooled up and have run through a couple of lowers on my own, I'm thinking about offering to let a few others come over and give it a try. I think that this jig/router set up will cut down the time considerably.

Merry Christmas all - and thanks 80% Arms for getting a pretty good product out to market in such a short period of time.

We're looking into creating a universal version of this jig that is just as easy to use, but it's a major challenge to design. If ease of use wasn't such a high priority for us, it would be fairly straight forward to make, but making it a super easy to use system is a challenge.

Thanks for the posts Bill, I thought I was doing something wrong. I too switched over to my (craptastic) drill press after about 10 minutes and 1/2" of progress with the hand drill. Ten minutes later I had the first two holes done.

Drill press is indeed optional, but only just barely I think.

__________________
"This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave." - Elmer Davis

To those who are finding that drilling holes with a hand drill is much slower than a drill press, do you have 7075 alloy lowers (80% Arms 7075 lowers have a 7 stamped near where the pistol grip screw threads in)? 7075 is MUCH slower to drill than 6061. We recommend 6061 over 7075 for a few reasons, a big one being that it's a lot easier to machine. The vast majority of the lowers we sell are 6061.

If you are milling 7075, you'll need to go much slower and take passes of 1/4 to 1/5 of a hash mark (referring to the marks on the built in depth gage), instead of the 1/3 to 1/2 a hash mark we recommend for 6061.

We'll try and throw up a quick youtube video of a 6061 lower being drilled in 10 min to show it's not difficult to do

With that said, a drill press is indeed quicker, but the difference shouldn't be that great.

It's also worth mentioning that we tried drilling these holes with an older drill bit that had seen years of use, and a brand new one, and the difference was night and day. It's critical to use a sharp drill bit.

I noticed there's an option to order a raw finish 80% .308 lower but not a raw finish 80% AR-15 lower. Are raw finish AR-15 lowers obtainable?

__________________JPFO Genocide Chart Note that seven of the nine genocides documented in the Genocide Chart were perpetrated against "political opponents." If you're a Christian, a gun owner, and support the Constitution and natural rights, then you are a political opponent to the Marxists who control the CA and US regimes, and to their armies of useful idiots.

So I ordered a basic lower, but it has a 7 stamped on it. Did I somehow get a 7075 one instead?

-Mb

PM sent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mitch J

Are we notified with a tracking # when shipped?
Thanks.

Yes!

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigJ

Any update on the video fellas?

We finished filming last week. Just waiting for editing to finish up, expecting it any day now...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hiknefer

I noticed there's an option to order a raw finish 80% .308 lower but not a raw finish 80% AR-15 lower. Are raw finish AR-15 lowers obtainable?

Yes they are. We'll put that option on the website at some point. If you want raw finish for now please just send us an email and we'll take care of it. Pricing is same as bead blasted, which is essentially a sand blasted raw aluminum finish.

If you want raw finish for now please just send us an email and we'll take care of it. Pricing is same as bead blasted, which is essentially a sand blasted raw aluminum finish.

Thanks. I was planning to have the lowers Cerakoted but when I called the Cerakote guy and asked about it things went down hill very quickly. I'll just go with the anodized lowers.

__________________JPFO Genocide Chart Note that seven of the nine genocides documented in the Genocide Chart were perpetrated against "political opponents." If you're a Christian, a gun owner, and support the Constitution and natural rights, then you are a political opponent to the Marxists who control the CA and US regimes, and to their armies of useful idiots.

I ended up with a 7075 lower on accident. The suggestion about sharp drill bits is no joke. It goes way faster. My first bit was an older one and it was taking forever to finish the first two holes. The new bit finished the rest in about 15 minutes. This was with a cheap drill press. I'm waiting on the video before I break out the router. I could probably do it with just the instructions, but I prefer a visual demonstration.

Just got back from Sequoia - one lovely week with absolutely no internet or phone .

I finished filling out my receiver before leaving, got my end mill bits in the mail and will star machining out the fcp tonight or tomorrow. Because of the shipping backlog for the 80% arms lowers, I'm doing a qd lower which is almost a 100% fit in the easy jig. The tigger guard sits a couple hundredths below the easy jig. QD says their billet lowers are 7075 and I was using a more than sharp, quality bit with my 6 amp drill - I'll give the hand drill another try with the 80% Arms lower as soon as it gets here.

Looking at finishing up the qd before Monday and will post pictures when I'm done.

Hey guys, I'm making my way through the process and have a couple notes regarding the manual you might be interested in:

1) Figure 1: it appears the parts you have labeleld "Trigger Pocket Template" and "Rear-Shelf Pocket Template" are the same part, when in fact the parts that come in the kit are two very different parts.

2) Figure 2.3: You have the depth guages mislabeled; you're showing the longer cut as 0.630" and the shorter as 1.249". Those labels should be reversed.

3) Figure 3.1: The notes indicate the parts will be the "same color" when in fact the parts I received match (in color) those in the pic.

4) Your note in section 3a that says "Verify that the cap screw heads are surface of the router support base" should probably say "Verify that the cap screw heads are below the surface of the router support base"

That's as far as I've gotten. Speaking of which, here are some notes I made so far:
-I had a hell of a time installing the drill template. The tolerances are so tight that, for a while, I thought I wouldn't ever get all four screws in at the same time. In the end, I had to basically loosen all four jig wall screws so that the walls were lose, install the drill template screws snugly, retighten all four jig screws then tighten the four drill template screws. Took me a good 20 minutes of fiddling with it to get it right.

-I gave up using a hand drill. I see how its possible, but damn if it would be any fun. Even my drill press (3 amp) stalled several times while making the smallest of cuts; It seems to me the drill template is where the drill bit bound, no matter how much or how little cutting fluid I used. And, for the record, I was using a brand new high quality bit, so I don't think that was the issue. I'm not complaining; I understand why the tolerances are so tight, but I am giving a heads up to my fellow weekend warriors out there... bring your patience to bear when tackling this stage and go slow!

I'll update as I make more progress. Still looking forward to that vid!

__________________
"This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave." - Elmer Davis

Hey guys, I'm making my way through the process and have a couple notes regarding the manual you might be interested in:

1) Figure 1: it appears the parts you have labeleld "Trigger Pocket Template" and "Rear-Shelf Pocket Template" are the same part, when in fact the parts that come in the kit are two very different parts.

2) Figure 2.3: You have the depth guages mislabeled; you're showing the longer cut as 0.630" and the shorter as 1.249". Those labels should be reversed.

3) Figure 3.1: The notes indicate the parts will be the "same color" when in fact the parts I received match (in color) those in the pic.

4) Your note in section 3a that says "Verify that the cap screw heads are surface of the router support base" should probably say "Verify that the cap screw heads are below the surface of the router support base"

That's as far as I've gotten. Speaking of which, here are some notes I made so far:
-I had a hell of a time installing the drill template. The tolerances are so tight that, for a while, I thought I wouldn't ever get all four screws in at the same time. In the end, I had to basically loosen all four jig wall screws so that the walls were lose, install the drill template screws snugly, retighten all four jig screws then tighten the four drill template screws. Took me a good 20 minutes of fiddling with it to get it right.

-I gave up using a hand drill. I see how its possible, but damn if it would be any fun. Even my drill press (3 amp) stalled several times while making the smallest of cuts; It seems to me the drill template is where the drill bit bound, no matter how much or how little cutting fluid I used. And, for the record, I was using a brand new high quality bit, so I don't think that was the issue. I'm not complaining; I understand why the tolerances are so tight, but I am giving a heads up to my fellow weekend warriors out there... bring your patience to bear when tackling this stage and go slow!

I'll update as I make more progress. Still looking forward to that vid!

I noted the same tight holes in an earlier post. I was able to hand drill all the holes but it took a couple of days because I kept having to recharge. Almost done milling, but my end mill broke and then I had to go on vacation. Will complete this weekend, but it's looking good so far.

If you are milling 7075, you'll need to go much slower and take passes of 1/4 to 1/5 of a hash mark (referring to the marks on the built in depth gage), instead of the 1/3 to 1/2 a hash mark we recommend for 6061.

The cutting surface of the end mill recommended is 1.5 inches, the depth of the fcp plate and riser is 1.5 inches. 1/5th of the hash mark exposed almost the entire cutting surface to the jig - and totally scrapped the jig on the first pass. This also might have scrapped my lower. since the pass was so light I think it can be salvaged, but I'll need to replace the fcp & riser plate - how can I order just the riser and the fcp plate?

DO NOT make the first cut at 1/5th of a hash - if you are going to make a more shallow cut you must disassemble the jig and make sure that the entire cutting surface of the end mill is below the fcp jig.

One really bad thing I'm noticing now (after I screwed it up) is that with the router plate you can't see ANYTHING going on.

The cutting surface of the end mill recommended is too great (long) - at the first recommended depth the cutting surface was able to cut into both the jig plate and riser. I only took a very light pass across the lower which might still be ok, but the jig plates are ruined.

I need to replace these parts - how can I order just the riser and the fcp plate?

I did the same thing, although I caught myself before damaging the trigger pocket template too badly. I think the instructions probably shouldn't suggest the 3rd hash mark as being the first finishing cut since that depth is totally going to depend on your end mill, and how deeply its installed in your router. The instructions should probably say make the first finishing cut as soon as your end mill's cutting surface has cleared the bottom of the jig, and not before.

+1 on how to order parts. I'd like to grab a new trigger pocket template.

__________________
"This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave." - Elmer Davis

My jig went together without too much trouble. I have had no issues with it so far. I am about to start milling, so we will see how that goes. With the mill eating the jig, it does warn you not to touch the side of the jig until you get below the cutting surface of the end mill. And there is a significant gap between the bottom of the jig and the top of the lower. They should probably clarify that in the instructions. I have been stressing about that too, but I figure I am going to take it real slow.

My jig went together without too much trouble. I have had no issues with it so far. I am about to start milling, so we will see how that goes. With the mill eating the jig, it does warn you not to touch the side of the jig until you get below the cutting surface of the end mill. And there is a significant gap between the bottom of the jig and the top of the lower. They should probably clarify that in the instructions. I have been stressing about that too, but I figure I am going to take it real slow.

-Mb

to place the cutting surface below the top place of the jig puts the 1.5" end mill suggested at the deepest cut mark. I.E. your first cut with the mill would be the deepest / final cut mark.

-----

Setting the depth of the first cut using the guide plate - remember recommended to 1/5th the depth for 7075 lowers.

now with the fcp guide only - notice how much cutting surface is against the guide..remember the router surface plate ADDS additional space thus putting the full cutting surface against the fcp guide

"Always verify end-mill cutting surface has cleared or 1/2 down on the jig template"

That is in there under "Finishing pass" You didn't follow the instructions on this one. You were supposed to mill out a polygon shape between all of the holes before you started milling the stuff close to the edge. That way the cutting surface would be underneath the edge of the jig. You went straight at the edge, and the mill ate your jig. Realize, I am a monkey, and I have never done this before either. But the directions are clear enough that I haven't destroyed my jig yet.

"Always verify end-mill cutting surface has cleared or 1/2 down on the jig template"

Quote:

Originally Posted by 80% Arms

If you are milling 7075, you'll need to go much slower and take passes of 1/4 to 1/5 of a hash mark (referring to the marks on the built in depth gage), instead of the 1/3 to 1/2 a hash mark we recommend for 6061.

Direct contradiction.

I am using their recommended end mill. Setting the depth to the first cut line STILL exposes the cutting surface to the fcp plate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gun toting monkeyboy

That is in there under "Finishing pass" You didn't follow the instructions on this one. You were supposed to mill out a polygon shape between all of the holes before you started milling the stuff close to the edge. That way the cutting surface would be underneath the edge of the jig. You went straight at the edge, and the mill ate your jig.

And I DID mill out the center first - milling out the center the end mill doesn't touch the guide plate - unfortunately - the way I read the directions was to mill out the center at the marked depth THEN do the edges at the marked depth not do the centers all the way to the final depth, then go back and cut the edges.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gun toting monkeyboy

Realize, I am a monkey, and I have never done this before either. But the directions are clear enough that I haven't destroyed my jig yet

Guess you're smarter than we are since it looks like BigJ had similar issues as I did.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigJ

I did the same thing, although I caught myself before damaging the trigger pocket template too badly. I think the instructions probably shouldn't suggest the 3rd hash mark as being the first finishing cut since that depth is totally going to depend on your end mill, and how deeply its installed in your router. The instructions should probably say make the first finishing cut as soon as your end mill's cutting surface has cleared the bottom of the jig, and not before.

+1 on how to order parts. I'd like to grab a new trigger pocket template.

All these problems make me sorry I ordered one. This compiled with promises of shipping and not hitting the mark 3 times makes me question lots of things. My last email from u guys said my jig would ship last Monday and I didn't get a confirmation till today which is 4 days later. I did notice you guys finally updated your wait time. Mine took 4 weeks to ship

Sounds like everyone needs to be more patient. I'm holding out until I see a video of one completed via a router. Written instructions for something like this is not for me especially in todays tech time. Like buying the 1st model year of a car, there are always bugs that need to be worked out. If you're looking to build an AR then I have to assume you already have at least one at the ready for the range. Go shoot that and wait until 80% Arms gets everything figured out, bashing them publicly doesnt help. When you rush things, something always goes south.

All these problems make me sorry I ordered one. This compiled with promises of shipping and not hitting the mark 3 times makes me question lots of things. My last email from u guys said my jig would ship last Monday and I didn't get a confirmation till today which is 4 days later. I did notice you guys finally updated your wait time. Mine took 4 weeks to ship

I don't think its "non functional", but I seriously question if this method is quicker and easier than using the drill press. I'm going to have to get another fcp plate before I can continue on with a second try (and I didn't receive a response from them today after emailing sales regarding purchasing "parts), lets hope that individual parts are available for purchase (I will not be happy if told I have to buy a complete easy jig assembly to replace the part) and that there isn't going to be a 4 week wait to get it.

Sounds like everyone needs to be more patient. I'm holding out until I see a video of one completed via a router. Written instructions for something like this is not for me especially in todays tech time. Like buying the 1st model year of a car, there are always bugs that need to be worked out. If you're looking to build an AR then I have to assume you already have at least one at the ready for the range. Go shoot that and wait until 80% Arms gets everything figured out, bashing them publicly doesnt help. When you rush things, something always goes south.

And wouldn't you think it prudent to produce a product and have all that available before shipping it to customers?

First ship date was supposed to be Dec 4th, then pushed back to Dec 14th, actual ship date was closer to Dec 22.

Manual wasn't put online until the day/day after I received the jig - we still haven't seen the companies produced video that was supposedly shot the weekend before the product was shipped.

"The Easy Jig™ is a patent pending device that makes machining your 80% lower easier, faster, and safer. Lowers finished with the Easy Jig™ have a better finish and hold tolerances that could not be achieved using any other jig on the market today. You do not need to own a drill press or mill to use the Easy Jig™. It truly makes finishing your lower a monkey simple process. On top of all this, it’s extremely durable and can be reused for dozens of lowers."

Now that I have damaged my jig and possible scrapped a $125 lower - it would seem that "It truly makes finishing your lower a monkey simple process." isn't quite 100% accurate.

See, I think it may be faster than a drill press, but it takes a different approach. The instructions could be a bit clearer, and the video should help. A line in there somewhere about not cutting to the edge before reaching the 3rd hash mark would probably help.

-Mb

(edit) Remember, we were all throwing money at them in November, and pressuring them to get us the stuff as soon as possible. This is a different and novel way of finishing lowers, geared towards those of us not talented enough to use a regular mill. If I can get this to work, I will be a happy camper, as I will be able to turn out a serviceable lower in a few hours, by my self, with tools that I now own. These kinds of teething problems are par for the course. And we don't have a vast array of people who have done it this way before, post things online to warn us of potential pitfalls.

See, I think it may be faster than a drill press, but it takes a different approach. The instructions could be a bit clearer, and the video should help. A line in there somewhere about not cutting to the edge before reaching the 3rd hash mark would probably help.

-Mb

(edit) Remember, we were all throwing money at them in November, and pressuring them to get us the stuff as soon as possible. This is a different and novel way of finishing lowers, geared towards those of us not talented enough to use a regular mill. If I can get this to work, I will be a happy camper, as I will be able to turn out a serviceable lower in a few hours, by my self, with tools that I now own. These kinds of teething problems are par for the course. And we don't have a vast array of people who have done it this way before, post things online to warn us of potential pitfalls.

And I want to make it clear - that I am in no way blaming them, in as far as the printed directions are not 100% clear (and the promised video might have made a difference).

I don't want to see you (or anyone else) scrap a $125 lower or a $129 jig, I'm not very happy about my costly mistake, but hopefully it prevents someone else from making the same mistake.

Sounds like everyone needs to be more patient. I'm holding out until I see a video of one completed via a router. Written instructions for something like this is not for me especially in todays tech time. Like buying the 1st model year of a car, there are always bugs that need to be worked out. If you're looking to build an AR then I have to assume you already have at least one at the ready for the range. Go shoot that and wait until 80% Arms gets everything figured out, bashing them publicly doesnt help. When you rush things, something always goes south.

My jig and lower should be at home when I get back from vacation so I am following this thread closely so that I can learn from others. I appreciate all the information posted and certainly don't see anyone bashing 80% Arms. In fact, the difficulties and advice has all been presented in a positive manner.
DamMan